Marine Corp

James Edward Orr, 20, from the First Battalion Eighth Marines Alpha Company, lifts weights made from barbed wire at a makeshift gym at an outpost in Kunjak in Helmand province, Feb. 17. (Finbarr O’Reilly/Reuters)

And I thought prison gyms on TV shows looked badass! You can’t get much more badass than lifting spooled up barbed wire. That Marine needs to get those pants fixed though. You can’t be too safe with that don’t ask don’t tell policy. LOL

Semper Fi

If you have been watching the news or reading any of the online forums lately, it would have been hard to miss all the talk about the M4 carbine and its “failure” in Afghanistan.

I had a number of thoughts on this topic and had a draft written up for an article I was going to post, then I saw a new post on the topic at Vuurwapen Blog which I will quote a few lines from ( because I agree 100% with them ):

I’m always a little suspicious when I see claims of M4s going down in combat.

One of the biggest problems is when Soldiers and Marines try to use their rifle in a manner other than that which was originally intended.

Unfortunately, an incorrect thought process persists among many officers and senior enlisted – that the rifles should be scrubbed clean as often as possible, and that oil should not be added to the weapon, for it will “attract dust and dirt”. Soldiers and Marines have been dying because of this absolute garbage since the introduction of the Garand in combat operations in the Pacific during WWII. Proper lubrication is vital for any semiautomatic or automatic weapon.

Initial distribution of the Corps’ new Deployment Bag, a 10-pound footlocker on wheels, began in September and will continue for the next year, according to Marine Corps Systems Command. Manufactured by California-based ForceProtector Gear, the new bag can haul up to 75 pounds and is a significant upgrade from the service’s standard green duffel, which has remained largely unchanged for the past 25 years, officials said.

Talk about a big improvement to the old “sea bag”:

The Corps agreed to pay Atlantic Diving Supply, the bag’s distributor, $18 million for about 60,000 bags, according to SysCom.